Cziffra: I do not agree with sight reading being taught too early

[ranjit]

Here is Cziffra from his memoirs. I wonder if you have any thoughts on this.

How do I feel now about my musical apprenticeship? Setting out to learn the piano seriously without being able to read music cannot do any great harm. Quite the contrary: taking care of the practical rather than the theoretical helps and speeds up the flowering and development of reflexes. The learner’s growing concentration is not saturated or dispersed by having to learn other notions his brain can well do without and he is able to work with maximum efficiency to develop his reflexes, the basis of any true pianistic technique in my view.

Do not get me wrong: I am not against theory and sight reading but I do not agree with their being taught too early. Any teacher faced with a self-taught beginner who shows exceptional skill at the keyboard will not fail to appreciate the truth of this. He should allow such hands to go their own way, while keeping an eye on how their skills develop so that the player will discover the laws governing the different phases of their spontaneity for himself.

It is far better to penetrate the mysteries of sight reading once the child, through the complicity between his fingers and the keyboard, has the all-powerful feeling that his will, as expressed by his hands, is moving over conquered terrain. This method was of the greatest benefit to me. With the help of exercises and, even more, of frequent periods spent improvising, my hands apidly became autonomous. Freed from having to search for the notes on the staves and keyboard at the same time, I was able to learn the significance of those mysterious fly-specks in record time, whereas beginners are so often put off by their apparent complexity. With this method, there was no time wasted and nothing to discourage me so that I continued to progress rapidly as well as enjoy myself. I would suggest that those who pay me the compliment of considering me to be the exception which proves the rule try this method, unorthodox though it undoubtedly is. I would go as far as to affirm that in every case the progress will be astonishing even if the pupil’s skill never rises above average. In my own case, there is no doubt that the experiment was a success way above all predictions. According to my father, my achievements by the age of five, both in theory and playing, were comparable with those of a good amateur adolescent player. From then on I progressed as if by magic, in a manner beyond all understanding.

[fignewton]

That's really interesting. Thank you for posting it. I agree with Cziffra to a large extent, but I was always a bad reader as a kid, so now I put a lot of emphasis on reading when teaching. I've taught a few students who had good playing ability, but lacked reading background, and it was really hard to have them play slowly and with proportionate rhythm, so their practicing was often not very effective. But maybe that's due to other factors.

I still agree with Cziffra though despite my own teaching experiences. Maybe a student could have a year of just playing before beginning lessons, then learn the basics of reading and improv at the same time. I wonder how the other great pianists began lessons as kids.

[lostinidlewonder]

Of course we must learn to speak before we read.

It is much more important that beginners learn to play first without being tied down by reading a score. But with zero reading skills how are they to remind themselves what to play? Watch videos? Play by ear? There needs to be a simple way to read within a safe zone that is manageable. You can also remind them of what chords to play or notes by drawing pictures of keyboards and numbers and letters etc, there are ways to slowly immerse beginners into reading normal music by modifying sheets and giving guides to help them find the notes, positions, coordination and fingers.

[ranjit]

Lostinidlewonder - I suppose having a good ear and memory can't hurt for this approach. I guess it's meant more for those piano students who naturally remember music and tinker with it.

[lostinidlewonder]

Yes and it should be promoted to learn by ear and have good memory. Although if we are talking about beginners we need to have an overall view of what constitutes beginners and certainly more beginners struggle with basic skills more so than talented ones. When I teach early beginners they will have more propensity to practice if they can remind themselves what they have to go through without too much difficulties and from my experience the easiest way to do that is to teach a modified easier version of notation. To ask them to go watch a video or listen to the music takes extra steps that not all of them are actually willing to go through and many of which would feel lost doing that.

[keypeg]

I responded in the other place where this question was asked.

(Cziffra)  Freed from having to search for the notes on the staves and keyboard at the same time, I was able to learn the significance of those mysterious fly-specks in record time, whereas beginners are so often put off by their apparent complexity. With this method, there was no time wasted and nothing to discourage me so that I continued to progress rapidly as well as enjoy myself......

Cziffra is imagining what learning to read early is like, and I suppose he's imagining how it's taught.  Teach approaches would be varied, so the experiences and results would also vary.  I don't know much about Cziffra's background.  Did he ever teach, himself, so that he has an idea of how that goes, for beginners?  If he learned to read later, how did he go about it?

[ranjit]

I responded in the other place where this question was asked.
Cziffra is imagining what learning to read early is like, and I suppose he's imagining how it's taught.  Teach approaches would be varied, so the experiences and results would also vary.  I don't know much about Cziffra's background.  Did he ever teach, himself, so that he has an idea of how that goes, for beginners?  If he learned to read later, how did he go about it?

As I understand it, Cziffra learned to read at ages 5 or 6. By that time, he had spent about 2 years playing the piano, largely by ear. He could imitate any melodies his mother sang and remember them, and his father taught him all about notes and chords. He writes that he was able to improvise at the level of an good amateur adolescent player. This was all before he learned to sight read. He asserts that since the keyboard was now conquered terrain, he could piece together the relationship between the notes and the keys very rapidly.

I also learned reading after learning how to play several pieces and improvise, so I can relate to the initial stages being a bit less of a struggle. That said, I was an adult and had to work at it probably more than Cziffra did from what it seems at first sight.

[keypeg]

If he started to learn to read at age 5 or 6, that is the average age that people learn to read (words or music) and in fact it's early.  I thought he had played by ear for years and maybe learned to read as a teen or young adult - that was the first impression.

I don't actually see anyting being solved here.

[lostinidlewonder]

Age is not the issue, the fact that he didn't read for the first years the of his playing is the point. I also went down that path and could play many pieces by ear or by copying others which made reading more logical later on (although I resisted reading early on because I could learn music much faster with other tools so reading seemed very slow and clunky) . Since I could play and coordinate myself at the piano before I read when I did start to read I could make the connection between what I saw on the page to what I had already done with my hands in the past on the piano.

One problem with avoiding developing music reading skills for long periods is the fact that pianists might not see the value in reading as they use other tools to learn (music notation of course is not necessary for music making, we have done without it for tens of thousands of years). I know a few high level pianists (all but one are not classical pianists) who don't read notation at any high level but work with fake books and chord tabs, they can fill in the rest by ear or by copying others. I also see it in my early beginners who prefer my altered sheet music rather than reading without those training wheels guiding them. It is fine you can ween them off it over time what is the rush? I teach them to create guides on the sheets themselves to help their reading, the more they do that the more they don't actually have to write it in, it is a process over time which evolves and changes as they develop.

On another note there are basic skills that are learned without the piano at all that some people actually miss. Being able to sing songs, clap a beat/rhythm and feel it, having a sense of coordination between the hands, feet, eyes and mind (eg: dance, sporting skills etc), listening to music etc all these things can be trained without the piano and often must be done for those who missed out on it. Some people have developed at a young age without music having been any large part of their growth. I grew up in a highly musical family with parents that sung, a father that played piano, I watched lots of cartoons which had music in them as a very young child (eg: Disney's Silly Symphony), in my early schooling years we all had music programs that everyone had to do, which included singing in groups, tapping sticks, playing basic instruments, a lot of Kodaly education etc etc etc. So how one develops musical awareness as a young child is actually quite critical. I have had students who really have no musical development at an early age this comes with a lot of challenges of course. Music should be a social and cultural experience but not everyone has had that so as a teacher must attempt to fill that void if necessary and it doesn't have anything to do with playing the piano.

[ranjit]

If he started to learn to read at age 5 or 6, that is the average age that people learn to read (words or music) and in fact it's early.

Your average student isn't playing at a grade 5-ish level by the time they start to read. At this point, he writes that he could play a Strauss waltz by ear, accompany himself with harmony and was delving into complex and dissonant harmony, and was playing at the level of an amateur adolescent player.

[keypeg]

Your average student isn't playing at a grade 5-ish level by the time they start to read. At this point, he writes that he could play a Strauss waltz by ear, accompany himself with harmony and was delving into complex and dissonant harmony, and was playing at the level of an amateur adolescent player.

We were talking about reading at age 5.  That is not a late start at reading.  And you'd not want to start earlier than that.  We were not talking about average and not average, talented or not talented.  Just reading.

[ranjit]

We were talking about reading at age 5.  That is not a late start at reading.  And you'd not want to start earlier than that.  We were not talking about average and not average, talented or not talented.  Just reading.

No, we're talking about learning reading after mastering a decent amount of technique or other skills.

[keypeg]

No, we're talking about learning reading after mastering a decent amount of technique or other skills.

In what you responded to, ** I ** was talking about  learning to read at age 5.  This is a normal age and in fact, it is rather early.  I don't think that children normally learn to read music before that age.

[klavieronin]

As someone who got a late start, I understood Cziffra’s comment to mean you shouldn’t learn reading too early in the learning process. To me he didn’t seem to be referring to age when he said “too early”.

[ronde_des_sylphes]

As I understand it, I think he has a point. There can be no harm, surely, in learning good, ergonomic hand positions and movements prior to learning what the symbols mean. After all, we learn how to vocalise sounds before we learn to read the alphabet.

Fwiw, I could play by ear (and improvise) before I learnt the formalities of notation.

[skari123]

Here is Cziffra from his memoirs. I wonder if you have any thoughts on this.

How do I feel now about my musical apprenticeship? Setting out to learn the piano seriously without being able to read music cannot do any great harm. Quite the contrary: taking care of the practical rather than the theoretical helps and speeds up the flowering and development of reflexes. The learner’s growing concentration is not saturated or dispersed by having to learn other notions his brain can well do without and he is able to work with maximum efficiency to develop his reflexes, the basis of any true pianistic technique in my view.

Do not get me wrong: I am not against theory and sight reading but I do not agree with their being taught too early. Any teacher faced with a self-taught beginner who shows exceptional skill at the keyboard will not fail to appreciate the truth of this. He should allow such hands to go their own way, while keeping an eye on how their skills develop so that the player will discover the laws governing the different phases of their spontaneity for himself.

It is far better to penetrate the mysteries of sight reading once the child, through the complicity between his fingers and the keyboard, has the all-powerful feeling that his will, as expressed by his hands, is moving over conquered terrain. This method was of the greatest benefit to me. With the help of exercises and, even more, of frequent periods spent improvising, my hands apidly became autonomous. Freed from having to search for the notes on the staves and keyboard at the same time, I was able to learn the significance of those mysterious fly-specks in record time, whereas beginners are so often put off by their apparent complexity. With this method, there was no time wasted and nothing to discourage me so that I continued to progress rapidly as well as enjoy myself. I would suggest that those who pay me the compliment of considering me to be the exception which proves the rule try this method, unorthodox though it undoubtedly is. I would go as far as to affirm that in every case the progress will be astonishing even if the pupil’s skill never rises above average. In my own case, there is no doubt that the experiment was a success way above all predictions. According to my father, my achievements by the age of five, both in theory and playing, were comparable with those of a good amateur adolescent player. From then on I progressed as if by magic, in a manner beyond all understanding.

I wholeheartedly agree with Cziffra on this subject. As a Suzuki student from the age of 5 I feel that this is the way to go. The first years I was playing not much emphasis was put on sight reading, in fact I didn't start learning to read properly until I had been playing for 2 years or so. I feel that in the first steps of learning the piano, it is way to demanding on the student to expect him to sight read a piece and learn it that way. I have seen great results with students if I teach them the music by playing it for them, and they observe and mimic what I'm doing. After they have thoroughly memorised the music, I then show them where in the score they are playing, to help them develop their ear gradually. This minimises the confusion students face when they have to learn music from scratch by sight reading it, and it develops their ear in the meantime!